How I Built This with Guy Raz Meridith Baer Home: Meridith Baer. She Started Over at 50 and Put Home Staging on the Map.
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Dec 1, 2025 
Meridith Baer, founder of Meredith Baer Home, shares her inspiring journey of reinventing her life at 50. From growing up near San Quentin to working as a Hollywood screenwriter, her bold pivot into home staging reshaped her career. She explains how she turned thrift-store finds into a thriving business, amassed a fleet of trucks, and scaled without outside funding. Meridith also discusses the psychology behind staging homes to captivate buyers, and how luck and saying yes to new opportunities played a crucial role in her success.
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Staging Emerged With Online Listings
- Staging became essential once buyers browsed homes online and needed visual imagination cues.
- Properly staged photos and rooms can raise sale prices significantly and speed transactions.
Accidental Birth Of A Business
- Meridith Baer staged the rental she was living in and it sold immediately, sparking the idea for a business.
- She realized staging could create value by making homes photograph and feel livable, turning a side project into opportunity.
Breakup Triggered A Career Pivot
- After Patrick Stewart left, Meridith rented and fixed up a Brentwood house and felt burned out on screenwriting.
- That shift led her to focus energy on home design and, eventually, staging as paid work.